


Nori

by gwendee



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Crushes, Denial of Feelings, Fluff and Humor, Gakushuu is a mess of a human being, Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-Canon, Strawberries, Valentine's Day, White Day, You heard it here first folks: Seaweed, seaweed - Freeform, seaweed?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 17:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20049556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendee/pseuds/gwendee
Summary: or: the normal-ness of; feat. Gakushuu's strange tastes, Valentine's day gifts, and SeaweedRen laughs at him. “You have a crush on seaweed ?”Gakushuu says, very indignantly, “no, I don’t.”“You have a crush on the vague concept of the person that gave you the seaweed,” Ren says, “but we know nothing about said person, so essentially you just really, really like the seaweed.”Gakushuu doesn’t reply to that.





	Nori

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot explain myself.
> 
> Welcome back my fellow brethren I'm back here today with another Karushuu fic which premise at first seems to make no sense, then after that makes even less sense than that.  
You heard it here first folks: seaweed. 
> 
> FYI in case you are unaware, Japan (and Korean and China, I think) have a different version of Valentine's Day than the westernized version which most of us see on media. There are two parts to it, first of which falls on the Valentine's day we know (14 Feb), where traditionally women give men chocolate, whether for romantic or platonic (obligation) reasons. Then follows with White day a month later (14 March), where men reciprocate and return gifts to the women.

**Nori**

or: the normal-ness of; feat. Gakushuu's strange tastes, Valentine's day gifts, and Seaweed

* * *

“You look like you had fun,” says his father one unremarkable evening when Gakushuu steps over the threshold of their house, in his hands a suspicious looking cardboard box.

“Why are you here?” Gakushuu grumbles. He dumps the box unceremoniously onto the coffee table, and his father’s fingers twitches towards it.

“Open it, go crazy,” Gakushuu waves a hand. He pours himself a glass of water and watches his father peer into the box with poorly concealed amusement, and pull out a small pouch of chocolates. 

“I’m almost jealous,” he says, and Gakushuu groans.

Gakushuu hates sweets. He _ hates _ sweets no matter the occasion, festive or romantic or otherwise, and he knows it’s kinda weird to dislike _ all _ forms of candy the way he does but he does. He takes the chocolates offered to him just to be polite but he’s not going to eat any of them, they’re full of sugar and artificial flavorings and packaged like a child cut out a paper bag with safety scissors and construction paper, and it’s _ disgusting _.

“You’re so critical, Gakushuu,” his father says, popping a chocolate into his mouth.

Whatever. Gakushuu knows Gakuhou wouldn’t harp on him or his strange tastes if that means he gets a good supply of Valentine’s candy every year to last him a couple of weeks with his sweet tooth. This has been a comfortable arrangement thus far and Gakushuu sees no reason to disrupt it.

He leaves his father to dig in the box at his own time and goes to take a shower. He scrolls through social media and gives cordial replies to his flirty messages, sighs, and then starts on his homework. Then checks his messages when his phone buzzes.

> Dad: Come downstairs.

Like it was too much effort to get his ass off the couch and come find me in the same house, Gakushuu thinks, but he’s not going to say anything, considering he’d probably do the same. It’s still annoying, though. 

The moment he steps in his living room, something comes sailing across the air. Gakushuu catches it before it hits his nose, and turns it over his hands; it’s a little simple paper packet of something wrapped in black, and taped shut with normal scotch tape. All in all, an unremarkable and dull package, something that nobody would hand out for Valentine’s day and something he certainly doesn’t remember receiving. He raises an eyebrow at Gakuhou, who shrugs.

The contents of the package are… stranger, especially in context. “Who gives someone dried seaweed for Valentine’s?”

“Who’s it from?” Gakuhou asks. Busybody.

“It’s not marked or signed,” Gakushuu says. He examines the snack. “Whoever it’s from, they know me better than everybody else.”

“Maybe it’s from Sakakibara,” Gakuhou says, eyes glittering.

Gakushuu snorts inelegantly. “He’d be suicidal to do this,” he says, “besides, he always waits for White Day to pass something to me so he’d have the excuse about ‘having made extra’ so he doesn’t look desperate.” 

“You don’t like sweets,” Gakuhou says.

“He makes it dark,” Gakushuu says, “which makes it all the more unbelievable that he’s just conveniently ‘had extra’ given that the chocolate he gives the girls are always cavity inducing.”

“Heartbreaker.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gakushuu says. He tears open the seaweed packet. It’s… normal seaweed. Nothing special about it, certainly a weird choice for Valentine’s, and Gakushuu finds himself staring at it for longer than he should.

“Oh my god,” Gakuhou says.

“Shut up.”

“No, no, this is the first time you’re going to eat something you’ve gotten for Valentine’s,” Gakuhou says, looking unnecessarily gleeful, “the first time, and it’s dried seaweed. It’s-”

“I don’t even know who it’s from,” Gakushuu says, ears burning. He retreats to his room as the pealing laughter of his father follows him upstairs, throws the packet onto his table, and starts his homework.

The seaweed taunts him from his desk. Gakushuu shuts it in his drawer. Out of sight, out of mind, or so they say.

“So,” Gakuhou says during dinner, “how was the seaweed?”

“I haven’t eaten it yet,” Gakushuu says.

“You already opened it.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to eat it immediately.”

“It’d become stale.”

“It’s in my drawer.”

“If you don’t want to eat it, I’ll-” 

“It’s mine,” Gakushuu interrupts. Gakuhou looks at him, mirth in his eyes.

Gakushuu glares. “You have the chocolate. Leave my seaweed alone.”

“Fine,” Gakuhou says.

Gakuhou does leaves the seaweed alone but now Gakushuu wishes the seaweed would leave _ him _ alone. He doesn’t get much work done after dinner because he’s thinking about it now, his stupid Valentine’s day seaweed snack sitting in his drawer getting _ stale _ , he hasn’t felt guilty about the uneaten chocolates pawned off to this father of all people for four years but now he’s obsessing about _ seaweed _ of all things.

Gakushuu pulls his drawer open, grabs a handful of dried seaweed, and stuffs it in his mouth.

Crispy, salty, tastes exactly like how dried seaweed should taste. Normal dried seaweed, not unique or special in any way.

“Oh my god,” Gakushuu says in mortification, and stuffs another handful in his mouth.

This is stupid. _ This is stupid _.

This is dried seaweed. This is the worst Valentine’s present he’d ever gotten, not even handmade like the dozens of chocolate he’s received over the course of the day, no doubt taken off the shelf of a convenience stall without any thought and then shoved into an envelope folded out of black paper. It’s not romantic at all in the slightest, tarnishing the spirit of this holiday with all it’s… strangeness.

And yet Gakushuu is sitting on his bed, silently munching his seaweed, the only thing he’d ever eaten from his Valentine’s haul in four years.

No, this was logical and sane. It’d make sense that he’d want to slowly savor the only _ good _ gift he’d ever gotten, not heaps and heaps of candy which he _ hated _ . Sure, it’s an unorthodox gift but why conform to stereotypes, anyways, if he can’t stand them in the slightest? His mystery gift-giver truly _ did _know him, then, so what if this was a strange choice of a Valentine’s gift? The point of a gift was for the receiver to enjoy them.

Gakushuu didn’t even really like seaweed that much. It’s not even in his top ten favorite flavors, but he thinks he might _ kind of _start to like it, maybe.

“Oh my god,” he says again, softer.

To his credit, it only takes Gakushuu three days to admit that it’s a problem. 

By this time he has the seaweed packet washed and flattened, thrown out in the trash because _ what the heck _, retrieved from the trash and washed again, then pressed between two heavy books and left in an unseen corner of his room where it proceeds to shame and taunt him whenever Gakushuu so much as glances in its direction.

“I have a problem,” Gakushuu says out loud. His heart agrees with him, fluttering traitorously in his chest. 

It’s sort of therapeutic for it to be laid out in the open. It’s a _ problem _. Gakushuu’s not denying that. A stupid problem, really, that for some inexplicable reason he’s unable to logic his way out of, and now he’s curled up in his bed with his hands on his face and thinking about it.

Maybe it’s the sentiment of it all. The first Valentine’s gift he’s truly accepted, ridiculous as it may be, from some secret admirer who truly liked him and knew him enough to give him not-candy. Or maybe it was a prank from someone giggling to themselves going, Gakushuu would truly be confused and annoyed when he sees this seaweed in his surely prized chocolate stash; well they would be losing their minds if they could see him now, actually dissolving into insanity over some goddamn seaweed. 

This is stupid. _ This is stupid _ . He doesn’t even like seaweed that much. He’s just projecting onto the seaweed. Is he lonely? If his thoughts have deviated towards fluttery feelings the equivalent of “they know me so well” when there is clearly _ no one in the equation to know him _, Gakushuu must surely subconsciously be craving attention of an intimate nature, especially given that it’s a Valentine’s gift after all. Did he secretly want a Valentine to appreciate after all this time?

No. No! This was a mediocre packet of dried seaweed and Gakushuu needed to stop thinking about it.

Stop.

Stop!

_ Stop! _

Gakushuu calls Ren. Ren knows what to do. Ren probably deals with things like feelings more than Gakushuu does, and he doesn’t get hung up on seaweed. Ren laughs at him on the phone and says, “you have a _ crush _ on _ seaweed _?”

Gakushuu says, very indignantly, “no, I don’t.”

“You have a crush on the vague concept of the person that gave you the seaweed,” Ren says, “but we know nothing about said person, so essentially you just really, really like the seaweed.”

Gakushuu doesn’t reply to that. He doesn’t have one, anyways.

“I’ll help you find out who gave that to you,” Ren says, “once you’re faced with an actual human being you can insult in your head, you’ll remember how much you hate people and deal with your feelings rationally.”

“Thank you,” Gakushuu says, embarrassed. Ren laughs at him again. 

Gakushuu does not spend another day moping around, nor does he spend that long agonizing day wondering who gave him Valentine’s seaweed or what that person would be like in real life and if Gakushuu would actually like them, because that was stupid. He doesn’t think at all about the mystery gift-giver and how they know him well with the ridiculous seaweed gift, because said person probably has no clue he’s turning in his bed over this. 

Nope. No. 

Stop!

“It’s Akabane,” Ren says, sliding into the seat across Gakushuu.

“What,” Gakushuu says.

“The seaweed,” Ren says, snickering. “It’s Akabane.”

“_ What, _” Gakushuu says, again.

He’s distressed. He’s troubled. All his hopes and dreams of finding out that the seaweed-giver was a nameless background character in his life and dismissing them and getting over this potpourri of emotions or whatever people call them, dissipate into the air. 

“How do you know?” Gakushuu demands. He needs to get it back, the blissful ignorance. 

“I asked him,” Ren says.

“You _ asked him _.”

“Yeah, I asked him, Gakushuu got seaweed for Valentine’s Day last week, that’s kind of funny, do you know who gave it to him? And he said, yeah, I did.”

“Are you sure he said that he _ gave _ me the seaweed and not that he _ knew _ who did?”

“Pretty sure,” Ren says, then, “do you still have that crush?”

Gakushuu glowers at him.

“Oh my god,” Ren says.

Oh my god indeed.

Because if there was something worse than Gakushuu’s really unhealthy obsession over a packet of seaweed and the mystery person who gifted him the packet, it was said mystery person being _ Karma Akabane _ . Not that Gakushuu has something personal against Akabane, really, he’s annoying and loud and has no respect for rules or authority or such, was _ way _ too smart for his own good and should really pay attention in class. Akabane could be nice, Gakushuu reasons with himself, and when he’s not trying to be a bother he could be a good conversationalist, he only _ seemed _ to slack but worked hard for his studies and was kinda cute-

Oh no. No, no, no. These were not normal-Gakushuu thoughts. Normal Gakushuu didn’t think Karma Akabane was cute. This was the seaweed effect, no, no, no!

Gakushuu’s thoughts drift, without his permission, dangerously close to a “Akabane knows more about me than I thought” and Gakushuu quickly yanks that rope back. That’s probably a prank, he thinks, Akabane wouldn’t _ purposely _ gift him something for Valentine’s if he was interested.

Since when does Gakushuu care if he’s interested?

He doesn’t. End of story.

But really, why Valentine’s? If Akabane’s goal was to baffle Gakushuu, slipping the package in his bag any day would do the trick. Except Gakushuu wouldn’t have this big of a reaction and would probably suspect Akabane immediately, but the whole connotation to Valentine’s has Gakushuu thinking way much more than he needs to.

But what was the point of a prank if you couldn’t enjoy the reactions of your victims? Akabane couldn’t even witness his current emotional turmoil, in fact, a normal person wouldn’t have any trouble over this at all. It was just a packet of goddamn seaweed. Maybe Akabane knew Gakushuu well enough to know he’d be affected-

No, no! Gakushuu wasn’t going to think about that! Akabane didn’t know him at all. Not his hatred for candy and sweet things, not his _ loneliness _, which Gakushuu himself didn’t know about, thank you very much. 

This whole ordeal was just stupid. Whatever. Akabane probably wasn’t even using his brain, Gakushuu should just stop thinking about it. Yes, that was preferable. 

To his credit, it only takes him another day, this time, to admit there’s a problem.

“I have a crush on Karma Akabane,” Gakushuu says softly to himself. Then covers his mouth as his face heats up, and kicks his legs up in the air, and calls Ren.

“Are you over your feelings?” Asks Ren, when he picks up.

Gakushuu doesn’t reply. 

“Oh dear,” Ren says, not sounding very sympathetic at all, “you have a crush, don’t you?”

Gakushuu continues to not reply.

“And this time,” he continues, “it’s on a real life person, a tangible personality with flaws and shortcomings, and you haven’t even talked yourself out of it. You even _ enjoy _ trash-talking Akabane in your leisure time, but suddenly he gave you a packet of seaweed and you’re head over heels?”

“I need to know why,” Gakushuu says, “that’s the part I can’t connect the dots over. Once I’m aware of the reason, why he gave me the seaweed, I can rationalize this whole issue and resolve it forever.”

“Okay,” Ren says. There’s a beat or two of silence between them.

“I’m not going to help you ask-”

“Why?” Gakushuu whines.

“Because it’s funny,” Ren snickers. “Gakushuu, go talk to him. Just ask. The day has come, you messed up over a _ boy _ of all things-”

Ren keeps shooting him meaningful glances all day during class which Gakushuu ignores, but he’s not going to procrastinate on this any further. He’s going to tackle these emotions head-on and get rid of the problem as soon as possible, so he corners Akabane after class.

There’s a lot of words swimming in Gakushuu’s head, and he’s ashamed to admit the only word that comes out in a semblance of a croak is “...seaweed?”

Akabane’s previously befuddled expression clears up. “Oh, yeah,” he says, leaning against the desk with his hands in his pockets like some anime male love interest, “did you like it?”

Gakushuu doesn’t answer that. “Why?” He says instead, brows furrowed.

Akabane cocks his head. “I saw it, then thought of you, so I decided to buy a packet for you. It’s no big deal, it was cheap.”

“Why would you think of me?”

“Because you’re always salty? I don’t know, I just did.”

“But,” Gakushuu says, wheels spinning in his head, “you gave it to me on Valentine’s.”

“Oh,” Akabane says, shifting to the side with a strange little smile on his face, “well, it doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.”

“Doesn’t mean anything?” Gakushuu folds his arms over himself. “So it was just a normal gift with an unfortunate timing?”

There’s a pause as Akabane regards him weirdly, before he says, “...sure?”

“Okay,” Gakushuu nods to himself. “Sure.” He bids Akabane a goodbye and walks off. 

This made sense. Akabane probably didn’t even think of the connotation of Valentine’s day, that was silly, did Akabane even celebrate Valentine’s? Gakushuu saw that he had gotten himself a significant amount of gifts, but that made sense because Akabane was attractive, and it didn’t mean that Akabane himself celebrated or appreciated the event. Gakushuu didn’t, and he gets his chocolates anyways.

The seaweed was an act of… friendship? And nothing more. He and Akabane had become pretty okay friends through the course of the year. They had study sessions and ate meals together sometime. It’s not the first time Akabane had gotten Gakushuu a snack anyways. This wasn’t weird at all.

Why did Akabane even bother to wrap up the seaweed in black paper? That part made no sense. Did he _ want _ it to resemble a gift? Did he really know that it was Valentine’s? 

No, no, but he said it didn’t have to mean anything if… Gakushuu didn’t… want it to. What if… he wanted it to mean _ something _? What would Akabane’s answer be, then?

No, no, no! This was stupid. This was _ stupid _ . It’s a packet of seaweed from Akabane that was _ not _ a Valentine’s gift. 

Gakushuu keeps thinking about it. He throws the empty seaweed packet away again, then digs it back out of his trash can and washes it, then stares in the mirror as he contemplates what a mess of a human being he has become. 

It’s not the seaweed, he reasons, it’s the sentiment of it, even if Akabane hadn’t meant it as a real Valentine’s gift, Gakushuu had already thought of it like one. His brain wouldn’t disconnect the association no matter how much Gakushuu begged it to and his heart still beat weirdly whenever Akabane smiled at him. 

Why was he hung up about this? _ Why was he hung up about this? _

“I just need closure,” Gakushuu says to his reflection, “then I’ll get over it.”

“Okay,” Ren says skeptically, from where he’s seated on Gakushuu’s bed from where he'd been watching Gakushuu monologue into his mirror for the past five minutes, “how are you going to do that?”

“I’m going to give him something for White Day,” Gakushuu decides, “to end the cycle. I return the gift, so there are no more expectations or strings left untied. It’s settled, and then I can stop thinking about it.”

“You’ve never returned gifts for Valentine’s before,” Ren points out, “instead of dismissing it or so to speak, wouldn’t it be more representative of an acceptance of your feelings?”

“It won’t be, because there are no feelings to accept,” Gakushuu says firmly.

“...Sure,” Ren says, ever supportive. 

Gakushuu chooses strawberries, because Akabane likes strawberries. 

People look over expectantly at him for White Day, and Gakushuu returns those looks with a pleasant smile on his own. The girls from Kunugigaoka Middle inform their new classmates that he hasn’t returned anyone’s affection chocolates before and that they shouldn’t hope too much, and so technically he isn’t deviating from his characteristic because he’s returning a gift for _ seaweed _. That made sense.

Gakushuu waits until after class when the room empties out, and then he drops the strawberry box onto Akabane’s table. Akabane startles, and looks up from where he was tapping into his phone. “Is this for me?”

Gakushuu crosses his arms. “For White Day,” he says.

“What is it?”

Yeah, Gakushuu wrapped the box. Kind of weird, but Akabane had wrapped one single packet of seaweed, and it felt weird to do any less. He watches Akabane open the box delicately and his eyes light up when he pulls out the carton.

“Strawberries? Seriously?” Akabane laughs. 

Gakushuu waits. 

“Thank you,” Akabane says. He opens the carton and pops a strawberry into his mouth, chews, swallows, then wordlessly offers one.

“I don’t eat sweet things,” Gakushuu says awkwardly.

Akabane looks amused. “Have you eaten a real life strawberry before? They’re not really that sweet, I promise.” 

Gakushuu takes the fruit from Akabane and stares at it. It’s a normal carton of strawberries he’d picked up from the supermarket on a normal grocery run, just like the very normal packet of seaweed. It’s not romantic or Valentine-like in the slightest, and when Gakushuu takes a bite of it, and realizes it’s not very sweet at all.

“How is it?” Akabane says.

“...Nice,” Gakushuu says. Then, “why did you _ really _ give me the seaweed?”

Akabane smiles, and Gakushuu’s chest feels weird again. “Why did you really give me the strawberries?” He counters, and gets to his feet. 

Gakushuu doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have one, anyways.

It’s not overwhelmingly sweet, when Akabane kisses him. He tastes a little like strawberry. It’s not even in his top ten favourite flavors, but he thinks he might _ kind of _start to like it, maybe.

“Why did you give me seaweed, of all things,” Gakushuu asks again, later.

“I knew you didn’t like anything sweet,” Akabane says, “and I meant it when I say I saw it on the aisle and thought of you. I thought maybe you’ll like it.”

“It drove me _ insane _,” Gakushuu admits.

“Heh,” Akabane says, “I’ll buy you more.”

That’s hardly romantic in the slightest. Seaweed isn’t a sweet gift at all. That’s good, Gakushuu thinks, since he doesn’t like sweet things after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Sea vegetable


End file.
